Inside China's Search For Its Soul

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Nevertheless, many Chinese are looking to Buddhism, Taoism and even brand-new religions to slake a thirst that all the Cokes in the world won't abate. Explains William T. Liu, an American sociologist working in Singapore: "Chinese communism is a system of economic development, but there is no theology to explain what people should believe in. China is very fertile ground for any religion right now."

So China's communist leaders are coming, inelegantly, to terms with the problems that religion presents. The mindless faith of the believer terrifies them. They have seen what it can do. And somewhere in their souls, men like Fu still believe in the ultimate triumph of atheism. This is, after all, a country that just inaugurated an annual Hero of Atheism award. (This year's winner was Sima Nan, a 43-year-old ex-journalist who debunks the "superhuman" feats of local shamans on his TV show.) "The sincere advocacy of freedom of religious belief is based on our understanding of the dialectical materialistic theory," says Ye Xiaowen, director of the State Council's Religious Affairs Bureau. "It is our concept of God." God, therefore, is subject to "sensible, cautious and scientific choice." As Ye wrote in 1996, "We must definitely adopt Lenin's attitude on such questions: 'Be especially cautious,' 'Be most rigorous,' and 'Think things over.'"

But Lenin would be mortified by modern China. Think things over? The place is changing so fast that the Chinese like to say, "He who thinks is lost." In China it's all about reaction. At the nation's heart is a tentatively beating, market-based economy, and keeping it alive puts every other goal--even mass atheism--in distant second place. That's why there's such a complex struggle with religion. China's leaders think a little faith can help the country grow--by serving as a bulwark against social unrest and the ennui Chinese call huise wenhua, or gray culture. Says Bishop Jin Luxian, 83, leader of Shanghai's Catholics: "The Communist Party realizes that religion has a good side and can contribute to the welfare of the people." Jin, who is an eighth-generation Chinese Catholic, has waited for that epiphany a long time--including 27 years spent in Chinese prisons. "In the past," he explains, "people opposed religion as the 'opiate of the masses.' But now that 'opium war' is over."

China's ideological Brahmins have cut a deal with the nation's spiritual leaders--as long as your religions support the regime, we'll let you exist. But there's a flip side: Step off that narrow path, and you'll go to jail. "Prison," Chinese priests and nuns still say, "is our seminary." In 1982 China's constitution was amended to permit freedom of religion. But that's not the same as freedom of belief or freedom from government interference. Thus while China has officially produced 1,000 Catholic clerics in the past 18 years, all government-certified Catholics--including Bishop Jin of Shanghai--must forswear allegiance to the Roman Pontiff. Those who refuse must worship underground, ministered to by fugitive priests. Beijing has little patience with those who say the Kingdom of Heaven has precedence over the rulers of the Middle Kingdom. Peter Xu Yongze, an underground Protestant minister, has been arrested three times for suggesting that God might be more enduring than the state. (His other transgressions include pushing a kind of Christianity that requires new converts to weep for three straight days as a way to cleanse themselves of sin.)

The government has been equally forceful in its crackdown on the Falun Gong. The mass meditation of 10,000 members it organized in Beijing in April petrified the communist brass, who had never heard of the sect. The idea of a religious group capable of mobilizing thousands of followers right at the doorstep of Zhongnanhai, the residential compound of China's leaders, is a nightmare. Inside China, some bureaucrats are worried that the Falun Gong protests signify a state system too weak and too dazzled by change to defend itself from threats. If thousands of quiet meditators can wreak this kind of havoc, they fret, just imagine what millions of angry rebels could do. Is China's ideological shield really that fragile? Says a young Shanghai painter who works with religious themes: "China is a bit like a moon colony, a place where life seems to exist sheltered only by a thin glass dome. Everyone knows it is supposed to be strong enough to resist meteorites, but it has never been tested." And no one in Zhongnanhai is eager to see it tested soon. Explains the Rev. Johan Candelin, a Finnish evangelical leader who has worked in China: "There are two words that define China's attitude toward religious freedom: control and stability."

In chaos-fearing China, those sound like wonderful values. But the nation is so large and its religious faith so broad and fiery that control and stability are nearly impossible to achieve. The government tries. It has lately stamped its approval on a special, God-free program of jingshen wenming--spiritual civilization--designed to ennoble people's lives with such values as hard work and family. But in a nation newly exposed to and passionately in love with the idea of choice, that kind of McReligion is falling flat. "Why can't I choose my own God?" Chinese ask themselves. When police in China's small towns plaster walls with slogans like CATHOLICS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO ENGAGE IN ILLEGAL PROPAGATION ACTIVITIES, Chinese no longer nod their heads and agree. They want to decide for themselves.